Wednesday, May 6, 2009

My Electronic Noise Album Cover from 1969

Believe it or not, I am about to release an album of electronic noise/music. Or rather, it is going to be released on my behalf, because all I did was provide the ancient relic of a tape it is made from. As some of you know, I am a member of an online electronic music "community" called "Stillstream." You can hear and participate in this group at this address. Long ago, I made electronic music at my father's Brandeis University electronic music studio, from 1968 to 1970. This album is a compilation of some of the sounds I made in '68 and '69.

Last year, this 40-year-old tape was transcribed to digital files and was passed along to Mark "Mystahr" Stolk, in the Netherlands, who runs an online-only "record label" called "Just Not Normal." Mark decided to publish this compilation, and did the editing and production work for it. Today, it will be released to the world on the "Just Not Normal" imprint. It is a free download, and if you have the bandwidth, not to mention the desire to hear my 40-year-old electronic sounds, here's your chance.

The tape box photocollage you see above is the original box from 1968, that the tape came in. I drew the figure and lettered it back then, but the other type about the recording and the green tape logo was added in for the cover composition. The caricature ("Marietta Cashman") depicts a certain type of earnest, liberal-Utopian political campaigner. If you look closely, you can see that she wears a political button that says "GENE." That was Eugene McCarthy, who ran for President in 1968 on a strong anti-war program. Such dedicated, somewhat dogmatic, and rather frumpy types still exist today.